Law Commons^™

Organizational Law As Commitment Device, Morgan Ricks

Vanderbilt Law Review

What is the essential role of the law of enterprise organization? The dominant view among business law scholars today is that organizational lawthe law of partnerships, corporations, private trusts, and their variants-serves primarily to structure relations between business owners, on the one hand, and business creditors, on the other. Under this "asset partitioning" theory, organizational law's main purpose is to shield business assets from claims of creditors of the business's owners, thereby giving business creditors a structurally senior claim on business assets. By relieving business creditors of the need to inspect the creditworthiness of business owners, the theory goes, organizational …

Globalizing Property Law: An Institutional Analysis, Amnon Lehavi

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article identifies the key role that institutions play in moving toward an effective cross-border regime in property law. Property is based on an in rem principle, which should provide a single system for ranking rights, powers, and priorities in assets that applies to all interested parties. In a global context, this feature of property law requires a cross-border legal ordering by an array of domestic and supranational institutions: legislative, administrative, and adjudicative.

The Article argues that the present fragmentation of property norms across national borders, and the incompleteness of supranational institutions that deal with property law, may place limits …

Intergalactic Property Law: A New Regime For A New Age, Alison Morris

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In November 2015, Congress passed the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015 ("the SPACE Act'), which allows private American companies to own any resources they collect from mining in space. This, however, conflicts with current international treaties to which the United States is a party, such as the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space ("the Outer Space Treaty'), which was adopted by the United Nations in 1967. Thus, without some changes, either the SPACE Act will be rendered useless or the United States will be in direct …

Augmenting Property Law: Applying The Right To Exclude In The Augmented Reality Universe, Samuel Mallick

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note considers whether and to what extent the property right to exclude applies to virtual space in the augmented reality (AR) universe. It provides an overview of AR's development and uses, as well as a review of property law concerning the right to exclude. By considering the consequences of previously proposed regulatory schemes in light of four hypothetical AR applications, this Note demonstrates that these solutions do not adequately balance the societal benefit achievable through free development of AR applications with landowners' absolute rights to exclude others from their property. This Note proposes adoption of an adjusted "open-range" common …

The Case For Gmos: Dealing With Clashes Between Property Rights And Health And Safety Concerns, Kline C. Moore

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A comparative analysis of international decisions concerning genetically modified organism (GMO) controversies reveals the judicial inconsistency that is often applied to the property rights of GMO producers and researchers. Courts often find that there are strong property right interests in GMOs, but when these rights clash with health and safety concerns, they are often minimized or completely forgotten; therefore, future growth in biotechnology is inhibited. This Note proposes a solution to this issue that better takes into account all stakeholders and allows for future investment and research into GMOs. The solution draws upon the lessons learned from current regulatory and …